City Research Online

Abstract

Britain and America the architects of the post-1945 Liberal International Order are in relative decline and have lost confidence in the LIO to retain their dominant status in relation to the rise of non-western powers including China. Hence, both Britain and America are trying to revive the Anglosphere by reasserting their power and authority amid racial, security, escalating tensions, and increasing danger of military conflict, especially given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The AUKUS trilateral military pact, alongside the long-established Anglospheric ‘Five Eyes’ system, and the Quad, marks a significant step in the shift from broad ‘congagement’ of China to a more militarized and cyber-securitized selective containment and rollback strategy while remaining broadly embedded in economic, commercial and financial interdependency with China. Anglosphere-EU relations also exhibit ambivalent tendencies. We demonstrate these anxieties by analysing the xenophobic, conflictual, pragmatism of the Trump administration; the policy continuities of the Biden administration; and the policies of ‘Global Britain’. The article shows that the Anglosphere’s campaign against China’s rising status is not a new cold war but is best understood in Gramscian-Kautksyian terms as ‘managed enmity’ within a turbulent, competitive but interdependent system. Furthermore, neither liberal nor realist theories grasp the complexities of Sino-Anglospheric relations because they fail to uncover the Anglosphere’s global historical, racialised, and cultural roots or its ideological power that has forged notions of trust and institutional primacy and cooperation amongst its racialised core membership.

Publication Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in The Routledge Handbook of Transatlantic Relations on 31 July 2023, available online: https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Transatlantic-Relations/Fahey/p/book/9781032255347
Publisher Keywords:	Anglosphere; AUKUS; America First; Global Britain; China; EU; Gramsci; Kautsky; Race
Subjects:	J Political Science > JX International law J Political Science > JZ International relations
Departments:	The City Law School > Academic Programmes School of Policy & Global Affairs > International Politics

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